Shiana/Chapter 27
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE FAIRY MUSIC.
Never was there such music and dancing as they had in Dermot's kitchen that night. There were two pipers and two fiddlers and a harper, so that the music never ceased. When one piper stopped the other would go on, and when one fiddler stopped the other fiddler would go on; and it was oftener the whole five would be going on together than that any one of them was idle—in the beginning of the night, at all events.
There was a fine big broad flag in the floor opposite the fire, and if you were beyond in the room listening to what went on, you would swear it was a shower of shoes that was falling upon that flag all night long, except that the shoes kept time with the music. I promise you Nora of the Causeway and her two brothers got hot dancing, and that they made others of the dancers get hotter.
When they used to be tired with dancing Michael was ready with drinks for them, but he did not appear to be watching them to give them to them. The dancers did not take much of the wine. They knew that if they drank much of it it would go not only into their heads, but into their feet too, and if the wine got into their feet there would be an end to the dancing.
The company used to sit down for a while, now and again, between two turns of dancing, and one of them would sing a fine stirring tuneful song There were some of them that had splendid chest-voices and head-voices, and it would raise gloom from one's heart to hear a good song from them.
There was one of the pipers who knew fairy music. He often used to play the fairy music on the pipes, of his own accord; but it was very hard to get him to play it when he was asked to do so. He used to say it was not right to play it to people because it was too eerie.
When they were all tired and fagged and worn out and exhausted by the dancing, they asked the piper to play the fairy music to them. He refused for a long time. He said the music was too eerie, and that it would not do to play it in a company. They gave him another drink of the King's wine, and they went on urging him until he had to yield. He got the pipes ready, and filled the bag. The company became as silent as if they had neither life nor breath.
Soon the people heard a low murmuring sound, deep and tender, fine and soft and smooth, moving round the house outside. Then people thought there was something like a rush of wind accompanying the movement of sound, and that it was the wind that was producing the sound, and not the pipes. Then a beautiful melody broke through the sound, and both the melody and the low murmuring came into the house. The murmur grew stronger, and there came a sort of trembling and swaying in the sound of it. Soon there was heard another sound, trembling and swaying in the same manner, with a sweet, delightful melody running through it, while it and the other sound and melody did not detract from, but rather enhanced each other, so that the melody was improved by the sound, and the sound was the sweeter for the melody. Then a third sound arose, trembling and swaying, and having blended with it an exquisite air of its own. That third sound startled everyone. They could have sworn it was a human voice!
Then there gushed forth as it were a torrent of music, the sweetest and clearest, the smoothest and most pleasing that anyone present had ever heard. It mingled with the low, sweet murmuring, and with the human voice, and with the sort of wind that seemed to accompany them, and the whole harmony swept round the house in a whirl. The voice and the sound became stronger, and the mingling and the whirling more rapid, until the people thought that a whirlwind was actually spinning through the house. It was here, and it was there. It would spring in one direction, and then in another. They thought it seemed to lie down and rush along the floor. Then, as the music would seem to make a spring, the whirlwind would fly up among the beams of the roof and sweep round overhead, so that the people imagined they could hear the wings of birds in it. Then they fancied they heard, through the music, a sob as of weeping. Presently it would turn into loud laughter. Then they would hear, distinctly sounding, through the music, what seemed to be the voice of a child. Soon another child's voice was answering that one, the two voices answering each other and keeping time with the music. Then a third voice arose, like the voice of a young woman, and none of the listeners had ever heard a human voice so musical, so beautiful, so sweet. After a moment another woman's voice replied to that one, and if the first voice was musical, even more musical and sweet was the second voice; and they kept time with each other and with the music in perfect harmony. Then, as if a door had been opened, all the music swelled and rose with great power. The movement became more rapid, the energy grew greater, and an added sweetness came into the voices. They went rising above each other and sinking below each other. They went whirling around each other. They were down upon the floor. They were up among the rafters. They were in this corner, in that corner, in the other corner—till a kind of nervousness began to come upon the people, who were giving side-looks over their shoulders to see if anyone had spoken.
Then the music again increased in power, as if another door had been opened, larger than the first. There arose a swelling and a strength and a volume of musical sound. It turned and it twisted and it rolled along the floor, and along the walls, and along the roof of the house, overhead. It was sometimes a bellow, and sometimes a wild shout, and sometimes a loud weeping, and sometimes a heart-breaking cry, that you would think would draw a sigh from a stone. Again it was a burst of laughter and merriment and delight and gladness, such as you would think would raise the dead out of the earth—the women's voices and the child-voices speaking and responding distinctly through the loudest of the bellowing, through the bitterest of the weeping, through the merriest of the laughter; and then there would be heard now and again, amid the whole commotion, a long, sharp, wild, terrible shriek, which would freeze the blood of all who heard it.
Then the people heard, rushing along together, like the sound of a sea, the bellowing and the shouting and the shrieking, the weeping and the laughter, the child-voices and the women's voices. These were all interfolded and intertwined and overlapped. They were under each other and over each other and within each other. They were in one place, and in another place, and in yet a third place; then they were everywhere at once, till the people began to think that all the turmoil was inside their own ears. Then another sound was heard in the music, a sound like the low rumbling of thunder. It swept along the floor, swelling and decreasing in its roaring. It went through the timbers of the house, and through the wood of the chairs, and through the people's bones, quivering and surging. It became stronger and stronger until it gathered to itself all the music and all the voices, and swept them round the house as in a whirlpool. Then the thunder grew yet stronger and heavier, and all became more violent—the whirling and the quivering and surging in the wood and in the people's bones—until all the listeners began to feel a palpitation of the heart and a dizziness in the head.
Then one of the child-voices went away out through the chimney. One of the women's voices followed it. Then a woman's voice went out through the chimney, and a child-voice followed it. Then a shriek went out by the chimney, and another shriek followed it. Then there went out through the chimney the first human voice that was heard in the music. The other different sorts of music followed them by degrees. Soon there was nothing heard within but the thunder, surging and quivering. Then the thunder grew lower and lower, and the surging and the quivering grew weaker and weaker, the energy slackened, the power lessened, until the thunder was no more than a low murmur. Then the murmur grew fainter and fainter till it was only a breath. And then it stopped.
The cock crew!
The moment the cock crew the Maid of the Liss gave a shriek and fell down in a faint. No one stirred. You would imagine they were all bewitched. At last the big tinker jumped up.
"Why," said he, "what's the matter with you all? Two of you women take that girl and carry her out into the air."
They took her out into the air and she came to.
"Where is the priest?" said somebody.
"He went home early in the night, ever so long ago," said Michael.
Soon the Maid of the Liss came in again, quite well and strong, and arguing petulantly with the women who had carried her out that they need not have taken the trouble; that they were too officious, for there was nothing the matter with her any more than with any of themselves; that they had better have let her alone; what made them so busy?
The piper struck up another tune, in which there was no fairy music, and the dancing went on again as gaily as if it had been the beginning of the night. The cock crew again and again, but neither the Maid of the Liss nor anybody else paid any attention to him. The music and the dancing went on, the pipers playing by turns, and the flagstone being well beaten by the shoes; the food and the drink going round according as people wanted them; until the daylight came in at the door.
The harper was found fast asleep, and one of the pipers drunk. But neither sleep nor drunkenness touched the man of the fairy music, although he had taken plenty of the wine.